On Monday the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to adopt dramatic rule changes that will extend the market dominance of the five media corporations that control most of what Americans read, see and hear. I am a major shareholder in the largest of those five corporations, yet -- speaking only for myself, and not for AOL Time Warner -- I oppose these rules. They will stifle debate, inhibit new ideas and shut out smaller businesses trying to compete. If these rules had been in place in 1970, it would have been virtually impossible for me to start Turner Broadcasting or, 10 years later, to launch CNN.

London's The Guardian has tracked down Salam Pax, the blogger who wrote about life in Baghdad during the war. Until now, it was unclear whether Salam was real or in Iraq at all. According to The Guardian's Rory McCarthy, he is a 29-year-old architect living in a Baghdad suburb with his family.

Outside the country, many didn't even believe that the man who wrote only under the sobriquet Salam Pax truly existed. It was the great irony of the war. While the world's leading newspapers and television networks poured millions of pounds into their coverage of the war in Iraq, it was the internet musings of a witty young Iraqi living in a two-storey house in a Baghdad suburb that scooped them all to deliver the most compelling description of life during the war.

Now, Salam Pax will be blogging for the Guardian. His first entry will appear next Wednesday.

Microsoft said it is developing software that makes it easier for subscription services to transfer music to portable music players. These services now provide unlimited downloads of hundreds of thousands of songs to a PC for a monthly fee, but they typically do not allow files to be moved around much. Microsoft said it will soon address this shortcoming with technology that will allow unlimited downloads to a portable device--a dramatic improvement. "We can already support unlimited downloads tethered to the PC," said Jonathan Usher, director of Microsoft's Windows Media division. "The next step is enabling access to unlimited downloads on consumer devices."

If you tried to subscribe to the Mindjack Release mailing list but did not receive a confirmation message you must re-subscribe. Our web form was seriously messed up and was not processing requests. Sorry for the inconvience.

As Slashdot has noted, the latest update to Apple's iTunes software makes a significant change to its streaming capabilities. Namely, the software now only permits streaming to other Macintosh computers on the same subnet. Previously, it was possible to stream songs between any two computers over the internet.

"I wasn't inclined to like Panzer Dragoon Orta; I'm not much for shooters, and I like exploration. But once the game started I forgot my aversion to linearity. Panzer Dragoon Orta is eye-slamming: full-throttle fantastic psychedelic. "

The Rights Management Add-on, available in a beta, or test version, allows permitted users to view files, the company said. The Web browser plug-in is meant to help companies protect sensitive documents, e-mail and other Web-based data from being manipulated, forwarded or copied by unauthorized individuals.

Document authors, Web site authors, and creators of Web-based applications can deliver protected information by restricting permission. This provides protection, not only while the information is in transit, but also after the recipient of the information has received it. [emphasis added]

"In a sequence that flashes on screen for a few scant seconds, the green phosphor text of Trinity's computer clearly shows Nmap being run against the IP address 10.2.2.2, and finding an open port number 22, correctly identified as the SSH service used to log into computers remotely.

"I was definitely pretty excited when I saw it," says "Fyodor," the 25-year-old author of Nmap. "I think compared to previous movies that had any kind of hacking content, you could generally assume it's going to be some kind of stupid 3D graphics show."

But the unexpected nod to hackerdom doesn't end there. Responding to the Nmap output , Trinity summons a program called "sshnuke" which begins "[a]ttempting to exploit SSHv1 CRC32." "

According to the trade agreement, any person who "circumvents without authority any effective technological measure" or distributes a hardware device or software utility that performs a circumvention function will be violating the law. The language tracks closely that of the DMCA, which the U.S. Congress enacted in 1998 over the objections of some librarians and computer scientists, who see it as a threat to legitimate research and to legitimate uses of copyrighted materials.

Unspoken was the second part of the policy -- to punish those nations that did not support the United States in the war. Chile had expected to be the first country to sign such an agreement after completing negotiations in December, a full month before Singapore completed its agreement. But Chile lost that honor by refusing to support the United States in its call for war at the United Nations Security Council, where Chile is a member, senior administration officials said.

Developed by Creative Commons, the Founders' Copyright is a legal option that allows copyright holders to voluntarily release their works to the public after the period envisioned in the original 1790 US copyright law--14 years, with the option of one 14-year extension. O'Reilly will be releasing its books under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits others to copy and distribute work as long as they give the original author and publisher credit.